Was this house listed on Twitter before they put it on MLS? With 6600 square feet of living space, certainly the broker could make room to stage some more vowels.

Now heeeeeeeeeere’s wahnny on why this wigwam’s a winner!

It’s been a while since multimillion+ RBA houses were featured on Burbed, but I just came across one that seems to go overboard in its ostentatiousness.

The house looks like an ad-hoc mishmash of architectural styles, with each room having different themes, some with painted ceilings, and of course, mawbul kawlums galore!

Curious who the seller/realtor thinks will be attracted to such a place, especially at their asking price.

We’re curious how high the overbidding on this kawlumned kastle will be when it’s so unbelvble. We’ve included some more pictures for your perusal in case you doubt its awesomitude. But we’re thinking of calling shenanigans on the home theater. Either every high-end installation looks and photographs exactly the same, or the picture’s been nicked from another listing.

Bunus: See if you can figure out how this one acre property on the corner of Bellecourt and Highway 9 is not a cornr lot.

October 5, 2012

9:50 AM: See end for update. It’s worth it.12:09 PM: Another update on the other murder.

It’s time to play Build a Ginormous House Somewhere Not As Expensive As The Real Bay Area and then try to find a buyer! Ready? It’s Burbed reader J from Alameda‘s turn with this lovely Lafayette listing.

As promised, a lovely chateau – in the Lafayette hills. Of note: a million dollar price reduction, a reasonable $322 a square foot and lots of columns.

Somehow it seems that 3.5 bathrooms spread across 6,200 sq feet of living space is not quite the usual ratio – a new way to measure houses – bathrooms per square feet? I am sure the buyer will be happy to have an elevator to navigate all those stories. Enjoy!

You’re right, J. We’ve noted the business of beaucoup bathrooms in ginormous houses for people with too much money and not enough taste. No wonder this place had a million dollar price reduction. According to the LA Times, this house needs at minimum 8 rooms for waste disposal and sluicing.

Good thing it was PRICED TO SELL !!! We’ve seen enough houses that were priced to stay empty or priced to sit on the listing service for years and years.

Update 9:50 AM: Burbed reader magdalena alerts us to this 2005 SF Chronicle article that specifically mentions the house. In a this-would-never-be-believed-as-fiction tragedy, the wife of criminal defense lawyer Daniel Horowitz was murdered in “the entryway of the home.” Wikipedia says she was murdered in a mobile home on the property while their “dream house” was being completed. The murder occurred four days after the beginning of a high-profile trial where Horowitz was defending Susan Polk, accused of killing her husband in their Orinda home. Horowitz had taken the case after Polk had fired her previous lawyers for encouraging her to plead insanity.

This led to a mistrial, but as Horowitz prepared for Polk’s second trial, she fired him, convinced that he had something to do with his wife’s murder. 16 year old Scott Dyleski was convicted of the murder; supposedly he intended to kill a neighbor who had run over his dog and went to the wrong house. Polk’s story manages to get even more bizarre after Horowitz was fired (this Dateline NBC link confirms the mobile home claim from Wikipedia).

WOW! Sunrise and sunset is just the entryway of what’s included with this house!

Update 12:09 PM: Murder kills home values as well as people. Check out Susan Polk’s house. We found a listing e-flyer, and Redfin has the price history:

September 3, 2012

Are you working three jobs, or one job for 140 hours a week, just so you can become a Real Bay Area homeowner? This Labor Day, why not just win an RBA house instead? Burbed reader Divasm informs us of a charity raffle where this Menlo Park house is first prize. The raffle tickets are $150 each, and yes, there is a quantity discount.

First of all, does anyone know where this house actually is? All the raffle site would say was “Central Menlo Park” and “leisurely stroll to downtown.” Perhaps one of our readers recognizes this 2006 Georgian joint. Send it in and we’ll add more details about the home, but for now we’ll tell you it’s a 5 BR/5 BA and just under 5 thousand square feet (which means it missed it by that much on the ginormous tag) on a 10 thousand foot lot. Plus the mawbul kawlums!

Second, did you know if you buy a raffle ticket like this, even though it’s for a legitimate charity, it is not tax-deductable? To be more specific, it is not tax-deductable unless you actually win something. Then you can offset the prize income with what you spent on the raffle tickets.

And finally, in trying (unsuccessfully) to locate the house, we came upon this older SF Gate story about house raffles. It turns out that raffle prize homes are usually not claimed. Winners usually prefer money instead of the house, so the first prize is not usually owned by the charity. The actual owner usually leases it to the charity, with an option to buy should the winner prefer the house instead of the suitcase full of cash.

Why do winners prefer the money over the house? If the prize is worth more than $5,000, get ready to fork over 25% of its value to the IRS. So if you won this house, supposedly worth $4.1 million, you’d have an instant million dollar Federal tax bill before you can say “clear title.”

But wait, there’s more! Winning this house also means you’d have to pay closing costs. And property taxes. (That’s another $44,000, at least.) And they’ll probably stick you for the transfer tax as well.

Now what would you pay? Because if you don’t live in California, and you win a raffle like this from a California charity, then state income tax gets withheld off the top as well. You’re supposed to pay it even if you do live here, but it won’t be withheld up front if you’re already an RBA resident.

So maybe you’re thinking, “Hey wait, I’m sitting in this non-RBA underwater house! Why don’t I raffle it like these charities do?” Sorry. That’s illegal. Private owners and commercial enterprises cannot run raffles. Charities couldn’t either, until Prop 17 passed in 2000. And the charity must register the raffle with the Attorney General’s office.

Or maybe not. The article is 3 years old, and there aren’t any raffle registrations beyond 2010 on the AG’s site. With all those budget cuts, maybe you can get away with raffling your house after all!

And if not, enjoy your Labor Day. We’ll be back tomorrow with more ridiculous realty.

Update: Thanks to Burbed reader Petsmart Groomer, we now know where the house is! Thanks very much!

August 22, 2012

A little less than a year ago we found an agent website listing ten big, expensive properties in the Real Bay Area (well, most of them were in the RBA). We dug in deep to see how the very high end market was doing as it began the fourth year of a prolonged economic slowdown. Burbed reader Robert Dow recently sent in a Los Altos Hills luxe listing, and sure enough, it was one of the ten featured fabulous freeholds. So let’s dwell on these digs in more detail. To the Batmobile!

Here’s what Robert had to say when bringing this gem to our attention.

Saw this listing for a $19,880,000 home for sale. No idea if this a reasonable price, but the house is pretty spectacular. Is this the kind of listing you’re looking for or is there some other set of criteria? Thanks.

Who wants to tell Robert what the criteria are for a home to be featured on Burbed? There are so many ways for RBA realty to win the Internet! For example, this one’s got a MAWBUL KAWLUM even on the guest house porch! And check out this “library,” where books are under glass.

Like any big, expensive, and mutli-acred mansion, it has a Virtual Tour. Unlike most of them, it also has a Gentleman’s Bar (unclear if the strippers are included, consult agent for details before writing offer). But most importantly, it has a history, although you’d never know that if you used the Estately page.

Fortunately, when we reviewed the Astonishing Webpage we filled in all those price reductions, so there’s not much more to add. And Zillow has it all, anyway, even if Redfin and Estately used the memory hole (as well as the seller request to not link to its Zestimate of $17,227,396)

Oh, about that Zestimate. It’s 13.3% below today’s list price, which disappoints us. We had a theory that the Zestimate for any large, custom, hard-to-price estate like this would be exactly 15% lower than the current asking price (and if you don’t believe us, go back to the Astonishing Webpage and check all ten of them).

Anyway, the hapless seller has been chasing the market down for more than FOUR YEARS. At what point will their price cutting finally hit the market bouncing back up? They have to get lucky this year, there’s a couple of 8s in the price now! Oh, wait. Facebook isn’t going to save the RBA after all. Never mind.

Enjoy this spacious, single-level, View Contemporary features 3 Bedrooms, 3.5 Bath plus formal Library/Study, on a quiet, private cul-du-sac in the highly sought-after Woodside Hills community. Live-in, remodel to suit, or build anew to take advantage of this huge 1.04 * acre lot with sweeping western hill views. The home at its prime was featured in Architectural Digest and Gentry Magazine.

That first sentence doesn’t scan at all. It starts off telling you to enjoy the house but gets lost in panting over the features. Just because you’re spending over a million on a house doesn’t mean you should expect a realtard capable of proofing his own copy. Anyway, here’s why nomadic sent this property in:

This house isn’t that bad, but a phrase in the copy is amusing: “the home at its prime was featured in Architectural Digest and Gentry Magazine. When? I’d guess around 1960. Hmm, according to their website, Gentry Magazine (apparently a pretentious publication) was established in 1993. That hardly seems possible!

1993? Then what’s with the mermaid on the website? Splash came out in 1984, and even The Little Mermaid beat the 90s by a month and a half. But if you read the current issue online, page 5 has a much pricier place in Woodside with the same high-falutin’ terms as eBay. Yup, a minimum bid and a Buy it Now price.

Okay, back to this house. “The house isn’t that bad”? How could it be bad? It has mawbul kawlums! Some of the other photos, though, suggest someone with too much money and no understanding of the term “less is more.” Because when it comes to the photos of this house, more is definitely not more. Maybe someone should tell the agent that plastering his name prominently across every single listing photo only adds to that “gilding the gold-plated fixtures” feeling.

And that doesn’t include the utterly pedestrian street name. Look, if you have enough wealth to buy in Woodside, you do not want to live on a street that reminds you of your mother’s crappy dishwasher. Maybe you could make a donation to the Mayor’s favorite charity in return for a declaration renaming the street Miele Manor or Bosch Boulevard. If you need inspiration, start leafing through Gentry Magazine.

2150 Waverley in Palo Alto is back on the market! Originally featured in 2009 for nearly four million dollars, this beautiful home with ocean views didn’t sell.

This house has appreciated a cool million–twenty-five percent–in just twenty-eight months. All the way to almost five-million dollars! Surely if it didn’t sell for four-million while it was listed for nearly all of 2009, someone will pay five-million in the summer of 2012. You know, the luxury good effect and all that. It just wasn’t priced high enough to be prestigious before.

Just imagine how much appreciation if it still had ocean views, or if you could still walk to Steve Jobs’ house from here. Hey, his old place is just down the street. It just needs to be more expensive so it can be truly prestigious.

So why was the home marked up a million dollars since 2009 when it didn’t sell? They didn’t spring for new listing copy, or expensive lower-case letters. But this time around, there are actual photos inside the house. So now we know a secret: There’s a set of MAWBUL KAWLUMS in the john!

But speaking of million dollar markups, whoops! Would you believe the seller reduced the price the very day we wrote this house up? Sure you would, but what you won’t believe is that a house in Palo Alto could be overpriced in the first place. It must be because the ocean views got misplaced.

You do realize if you don’t put your bid on this property in the next 15 minutes you’re going to be priced out forever.

May 29, 2012

Last week we looked at a series of very expensive houses. Let’s return to our Burbed roots and examine some less stratospheric home options. Today’s featured façade is a Milpitas mansion, thanks to Burbed reader PKamp3.

Wow! What a price! This beautiful 5 bedroom 3 bath home has enough square footage for a large family. Grand entry with pillar columns opens into a large living area with fireplace. Some bedrooms downstairs and the rest upstairs. 1 full bathroom downstairs as well!

So… if it was featured on Burbed on June 17, 2011 for $674,950 and it costs $340,800 today… is a 54% annualized loss the new 7.2% gain?

Yes, indeed, this house was featured before. Bet you didn’t recognize its new look above, either.

According to Zillow, the price was only lowered one other time from the original $674,950 “WON’T LAST!!” listing, to $660,000. And if the place didn’t sell at $674,950 between May and October, slashing $14,950 off (a whopping 2.2%) should have commenced the overbidding immediately.

The new asking price has been sitting for a month, despite the amazing features of the house (Some bedrooms downstairs and the rest upstairs). I know that when I buy a six bedroom house, I’m always really cheesed off when discovering some of the bedrooms under the septic tank.

Also, the price cut also reflects another cut: this new listing no longer features a view. But the kawlums are still included. Do check out the pictures on this new listing, though, as there are surprisingly few of the inside of the house compared to last time. There are four different shots of the back yard, and every single one of them features the portable grill.

Meanwhile, three different Redfin agents have left comments on the house. Let’s share in their expert opinion.

Question: Does the master bedroom have a Jacuzzi tub in it? Second question: How come two out of three realtards can’t spell Jacuzzi? J’accuse!

May 10, 2012

Like any long-running blog, Burbed has developed a few inside jokes. One of them is our fondness of the most important element in classical architecture. That’s right. Mawbul Kawlums. (And if you haven’t seen this video yet, please go watch it, because it’s a classic. Ha ha! Classic, get it?)

Ever since we featured this empty spec house, Burbed readers have asked for more homes in KawlumVision. Today’s featured listing says “Break out the red arrows!”

Thanks very much to Burbed reader Swan for this super structure in Saratoga at an even more super price!

This elegant 8000+/- sf Italian Villa on 1.5+/- view acres will awaken all your senses. The elaborate paver driveway with 3 entrances leads you to a beautifully designed front steps and door. Great curb appeal! The 3 levels include an excellent open floor plan with 6 bedrooms and 5.5 bathrooms, Brasilian Cherry hardwood floors, marble bathrooms, spiral staircase, Best Anderson windows and More!

Here’s why Swan shared this home with all of you:

I am in mawbul kawlum heaven!

Kawlums in front, kawlums at the garage, kawlums in the entry hall, kawlums in the master bath, kawlums in back, kawlums at the gazebo!

Are there enough red arrows in the world for this home?

This house may very well have broken the Burbed KawlumVision generator, because there actually are kawlums hiding behind other kawlums. We assure you that every single red arrow in the big picture above is pointing to a unique kawlum. It’s just that some of them are shy.

You can see the wallflower kawlums from this slightly different angle of the façade, available from this home’s virtual tour. Plus it also has the aforementioned garage kawlums.

The MLS listing has 14 yummy pictures, many of them with kawlums to drool over. But if you can’t get enough kawlumnage, plus more eye-popping “They put that in there?” you simply must check out the tour as well. And bring your red arrows.

Remember, nothing says “Rich people live here” like mawbul kawlums. Well, that and a $7 million listing price.

May 4, 2012

Yesterday we suggested you could spend more than two million dollars on an empty spot of land in the middle of flipping nowhere. Today we’re also flipping, with a quick-turnaround sale found by Burbed reader Mr. Kiasu. Oh, and did we mention that the market is hot, hot hot? Except for here.

Here’s why Mr. Kiasu thought you’d like to see this home on the front page.

Spring bounce in Los Altos!

Bought in oct 2011 for 1.5, now on sale for 3.29.

Probably a flip but we’d need to see the pictures for last October I guess. Neighbors are all in the 1.5 range.

No history before the October sale, so maybe it’s been in the same family since 1900.

Wait, $3.29? Not anymore. Now it’s $2.65. And still very much for sale. Even with all those mawbul kawlums. How could that be? It’s on a cul-de-sac and there’s a gate to keep out the riffraff and everything.

Fortunately, the old pictures are still available for our perusal, so thank you Redfin! Here’s a lovely pair from the old and the new of the same room. Do you think they replaced the pool table? Which one is the new sale?

Yes, comparing the old and the new listing photos really is something. For example, just a quick glance led to this find of bunus kawlums not available in the current listing! So it definitely pays to check selling history when looking at a property listing. That’s when you notice how many things in this house haven’t been updated and then wonder how the seller can justify more than doubling the price on this flip. We can see just how successful that gambit was.

Now sit back and listen to some really annoying light jazz while you enjoy the virtual tour.

April 17, 2012

Recently, we took a look at a house in Midtown Palo Alto that a number of commenters thought was overbuilt for the neighborhood. That reminded me of a similarly situated structure in Sunnyvale, so I pulled it up for nostalgia’s sake. What a delightful surprise to discover that it’s once again for sale! It was relisted just in time for April Fool’s Day, and at the same attractive price as it was three years ago.

Extraordinary six-bedroom, four and one half-bath custom estate perfect for executive lifestyle of luxury and unmatched class. Within this showcase home you will find a remodeled ONE-OF-KIND gourmet kitchen featuring best-in-class appliances with close access to the formal dining room, casual family room and truly alluring outdoor venue that is perfect for entertainment.

This time around, they’re not letting us see the inside. And it would need a lot of pictures, because this property has a FAR of 0.60. That can’t even be LEGAL in Sunnyvale.

But, this is a Custom Bahl Home! And if you haven’t heard of Bahl Homes, they built a few tracts around Silicon Valley, including some zero lot line curiosities and the snout-house “patio homes” just around the corner from this place. Now that they’re done with building tracts, they remain as a real estate company. Fortunately for us, today’s house has its own webpage on Bahl’s site, with pictures even! We don’t know when these were taken, though, as it’s been listed and sold many times since its construction. Have a look at those pictures and more, after the break.

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The posts on this weblog are provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confer no rights. The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and only represent the view of Burbed.com's editor. Comments are the views of commenters, not Burbed. If companies, properties, etc are mentioned on this blog, you should assume that I have a financial stake in them. Trust no one.